


Turntables

by blynninja



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: F/M, Future AU, Gen, Loss, Tragedy, angsty, post brotherhood au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-24
Updated: 2018-01-24
Packaged: 2019-03-08 19:44:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13465245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blynninja/pseuds/blynninja
Summary: Post-Brotherhood, Ed helps Winry deal with a loss that gets him thinking. Slight angst. AU."The accident took a lot of things..."





	Turntables

**Author's Note:**

> Terrible title, might change later. I literally saved this as "Turntables" in my documents because it was the first thing I thought of. I was on Part 3 or 4 of Brotherhood on Netflix when this thought showed up and I had to write it. Taking bits and pieces of both 03 and 09 animes, I guess?

The accident took a lot of things, but none of them worse than Winry’s hands.

_“Your hands were meant to give life,” Ed had told her that day in the alley, clutching her hands carefully._

Those capable hands, the hands that had healed him and many others, were now damaged almost beyond repair.

Her right hand, thankfully, had suffered less than her left, but it had still taken quite some time to heal.

Her left hand, unfortunately, had been almost completely amputated, actually just below the elbow because of the damage.

Even before her dominant arm had healed enough, Winry had asked for pen and paper, and Ed had seen her itching to draw blueprints. He could see the gears in her head spinning as she worked out a new automail idea, determined to create even in her distress.

Knowing that her hand wasn’t fully healed, Ed had insisted on doing it for her, despite her protests that he wasn’t as good at drawing anything, let alone blueprints, as she was.

He hadn’t argued, had just taken the pencil from her and asked her to describe what she wanted to draw.

Eventually, they’d created a rough sketch, which Winry had clutched protectively to her chest, tears dripping down her face.

Ed had only sat and rubbed her back, unable to think of anything else to do to comfort her.

After a little while, Winry’s hand had found his, the blueprint falling to her lap as he had clung to her fingers as desperately as he’d dared.

Today, her fingers clutch his, and Ed is glad he has years of training behind him to block out the pain in his hand. The agony on his beloved mechanic’s face is enough to rip his heart to pieces, never mind the pain in his fingers. He almost wishes he had his metal hand back for this. 

He knows this pain all too well, so it’s the least he can do to let her cling to him like this.

Granny, to her credit, looks stoic as she finalizes preparations for the connection of nerves to the automail prosthetic, but Ed knows she’s been uncertain of this since Winry first brought it up. The elder Rockbell mechanic knows the pain her granddaughter is in, but even the loss of Winry’s left arm isn’t enough to completely convince Pinako that automail is the best course of action. There’s pain in that option, too. But Winry is insistent, determined, and Granny has never really been able to dissuade her when she’s like this.

So here they sit, Winry dripping sweat as she cries and trembles through the fear that Edward knows all too well. The circulation in his hand is mostly cut off, but it’s nothing compared to what Winry is going through, so he’ll deal with it as long as he has to.

She glances at him apologetically, and he shrugs, hoping it conveys nonchalance instead of the pain he feels.

But Winry has always known him better than that, the way her eyes darken a constant reminder of that insight.

He’s just glad she can’t throw her trusty wrench at the moment.

The scream that rips through her as the prosthetic locks into place will haunt him until his dying day, but he doesn’t block it out. He’s heard a multitude of screams in the last decade, but none of them as horrifying as Winry’s, and he won’t let himself forget it.

It’s over relatively quickly, but Winry doesn’t let go of his hand for a very long time.

Ed can’t fault her for keeping herself grounded that way.

Al pokes his head in a little while later, bringing with him a whining Den, who sets her head on Winry’s bed.

Winry smiles as she sets her new arm on the dog’s head, commenting, “We match now, huh, girl?”

The smile doesn’t mask the tears, and Ed squeezes her fingers fiercely, unable to stop the moisture that leaks from his own eyes.

Someday he will marry this woman, and he will tell their children of how courageous and compassionate their mother is, working with her parents’ killer and designing her own automail arm among other amazing things.

He’ll have a lifetime to come up with more.

For now, he looks thoughtfully between his restored right arm and Winry’s automail left, wondering at how the tables can turn so unexpectedly.

**Author's Note:**

> IDK. My brain does stuff sometimes, and I don't always know if it's good or bad. IDK what kind of accident, tbh.
> 
> Den is referred to as female in her Wiki article, so that's what I went with.
> 
> I think Winry is right handed from what I can tell in the anime???


End file.
